The New International Encyclopædia/Fishing Birds

FISHING BIRDS. Birds subsisting by catching fish, and adapted in structure to their capture and digestion. They do not constitute a scientific group, many widely dissimilar forms having taken up and become adapted to this mode of life, not to include such out-of-the-way species as the kingfishers, and certain fish-eating birds of prey. The fishing birds proper include the larger sea-birds, such as the loons, penguins, auks, puffins, tropic-birds, frigate-birds, cormorants, and gannets; and certain fresh-water families of higher organization, such as the pelicans, darters, most herons, and some ducks. All are either powerful swimmers and divers, or else are skillful in lying in wait and snatching or piercing any fish that comes sufficiently close to their motionless forms. The instrument (except in the Raptores, which use their talons) is the beak, which is long, straight, sharply pointed, and sharp-edged, so that a firm grip may be had of the slippery bodies of their prey. A large part of the prehistoric birds were fish-catchers. Many of these birds have a special provision for bringing home a part of their catch to their young, either by swallowing it as far as the crop, whence it may be disgorged, or by storing it in a bag formed by the distensible membrane between the lower mandibles (e.g. pelicans). Certain more powerful birds (as the jäger gulls) profit by the labors of the fishing birds, compelling them to give up their prey; and men have trained the cormorant to exercise its skill for their benefit. See Cormorant; Gannet; and other birds of this group; and Plate of Fishing Birds.

FISHING BIRDS

1. YELLOW-BEAKED TROPIC BIRD (Phaethon flavirostris).	4. FRIGATE-BIRD (Fregatus aquila).
2. CORMORANT OR SHAG (Phalacrocorax carbo).	5. OLD-WORLD PELICAN (Pelicanus onocrotalus).
3. ARCTIC FULMAR (Fulmarus glacialis).	6. AFRICAN DARTER (Plotus Levaillanti).